"It is said that Dickens is Insane": Documenting a Rumor

Abstract:In April 1840 a rumor in London that Dickens had become insane was transmitted by metropolitan correspondents to Irish and American newspapers. Dickens became aware of the gossip by September, and confronted it in a personal statement in the Preface to the first volume of Master Humphrey's Clock. It is suggested that the poor reception of the opening numbers of the Clock, and Dickens's recent acrimonious dispute with the publisher Richard Bentley may have contributed to the rumor. The course of the rumor and Dickens's reaction to it are compared to the spread of gossip and Dickens's response to it sixteen years later, when his marriage collapsed.